Animal movement is shaped by the environment and the necessity to engage in essential activities. Animals must use urban and rural environments in different ways to meet food, cover, and reproduction needs. Urban deer present management challenges, and understanding deer movement with respect to developing landscapes is critical to inform effective deer management decisions that promote sustainable city planning. We analyzed the impact of urbanization on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) movement by studying 107 female deer that were captured and GPS-collared along an urbanization gradient in Durham and Orange Counties, North Carolina, from 2022 to 2024. We analyzed GPS collar data recorded at 2-hour intervals during the parturition season to assess the effects of land cover, proximity to anthropogenic features (e.g., roads), and time of day on white-tailed deer movement. We used hidden Markov movement models to classify deer into latent behavioral states and applied step selection functions to evaluate how deer navigate the landscape. This approach enabled us to quantify the proportion of time deer spent in each state across the urbanization gradient and understand how anthropogenic features affect deer movement. We determined that urbanization influenced deer movement and landscape use, with differing habitat selection across the gradient. Understanding the multifaceted effects of urbanization on deer movement, habitat selection, and behavior is important to inform management actions and predict responses of deer in urbanizing landscapes.
